AP Photo/Richard Vogel Teachers and students rally in the steps in front of Hamilton High School in Los Angeles. Capital & Main is an award-winning publication that reports from California on economic, political and social issues. The American Prospect is co-publishing this piece. I n 1973, Philadelphia teachers went on strike for nearly two months. Cleveland teachers walked off the job in 2002 and didn’t come back for 62 days. Last year, teacher strikes in West Virginia and Oklahoma lasted 10 and nine days, respectively. Nevertheless, just three days after teachers hit the picket line in Los Angeles, the media started to frame the strike in dire terms. One headline in a prominent news outlet asked, “Are the kids all right? LA teachers strike drags into third day with no end in sight,” while another asserted, “LA teachers bask in support for strike, but pressure grows to settle amid financial losses.” It goes without saying that no one wants a protracted teachers strike; earlier...

AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes Teachers, including United Teachers Los Angeles President Alex Caputo-Pearl, rally in downtown LA. Capital & Main is an award-winning publication that reports from California on economic, political and social issues. The American Prospect is co-publishing this piece. S ometimes strikes are exactly what they seem to be—battles over wages and working conditions, with relatively few implications for anything or anyone else. But sometimes a strike is about something much bigger: a fundamental clash over vision and values, with repercussions that extend far beyond the warring parties. Call it a meta-strike. If Los Angeles teachers walk off the job January 14, as widely expected, it will be a meta-strike with extremely high stakes not only for teachers, students and parents in LA, but for public education across the U.S. The stalemated negotiations over wages, class size, staffing and other issues matter—but they are proxies for an epic fight that has been...